Sugar on the Edge(60)

The woman that killed my son.





My heart is breaking. Literally breaking in half, then the two massive pieces are toppling over within my chest, where they fracture further and throb with pain for Gavin. My lungs feel constricted and my head is pounding as fearful blood surges through me.

“I met Amanda during my last year of university. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it was certainly complete and utter fascination for me. She was a poet… you know, one of those dark types that dressed in black from head to toe, smoked cigarettes, and quoted from Poe and Donne in her normal conversation. Her eyes were perpetually sad, and I used to think it was because she wrote sad poetry all the time.”

I listen to his story intently, noticing that there’s no fondness in his voice, but no bitterness either. It’s as if he’s telling me a simple story about a ship sailing past the shore one night.

“At any rate, we dated… fell in love, lived our lives together. Amanda eventually moved out of her Goth phase but she continued to be morose, even when she wasn’t writing her dark poetry. After I graduated, I got a job as a technical writer for a company that developed training manuals for large corporations. By day, I’d work my job putting dry and boring words on paper, and at night, I tried to make Amanda happy.”

“Why was she so sad?” I ask, my fingers lightly stroking his chest while my face is pressed against his heart, so I can hear the thrum of his life.

“She was depressed… or so we came to find out when I insisted she see a doctor. We were living together, and I was thinking about asking her to marry me, but I wanted her to be well. I wanted her to be happy and in love with me the way I was with her. They tried her on various medications, she seemed to get better for a while, and our lives marched on.”

“Did you marry?” I ask hesitantly.

“No. But she got pregnant. We were just using condoms, and I guess one must of have broken. It was a surprise to both of us, but we were happy with the news. Nine months later, Charlie was born.” Gavin pauses, clears his throat, and says in a raspy voice. “He was so beautiful. So perfect.”

“He looks just like you,” I say.

“Except he had Amanda’s eyes,” he adds on. “At any rate, I was brimming with happiness, but Amanda seemed to become more depressed again. Her doctors tweaked her medication, but nothing seemed to be working as a permanent fix. Postpartum depression, they said, and that it would get better if we just gave it time.”

“But it didn’t?” I guess.

“No, it didn’t. Amanda seemed to drift further and further away. I had to urge her to do simple things to take care of herself, like bathe and eat. I couldn’t trust Charlie with her, so my mum would watch him while I was at work. But I chose to ignore it, because Charlie was well cared for during the day, and at night I had him all to myself while Amanda would sit in front of the telly and watch game shows.”

“You must have felt so lonely,” I say quietly.

“Sometimes… but mostly I wasn’t because I had Charlie. And he had me, and really… that’s all I cared about. However, there were times that Amanda seemed okay. She’d take an interest in Charlie and me, and I could almost pretend that things were going to get better. She even had times where she was perfectly normal and was able to care for Charlie just fine.”

Gavin shifts on the couch, pulling my body up tighter to his. He takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly.

“One weekend, I got a call on a Saturday that a project I was working on needed some changes made before it was going to be presented for review on Monday. I had to go into the office. I tried to call my mum to watch Charlie, but she was out. Amanda seemed okay that day… had even gotten up that morning and made us breakfast. She assured me she would be fine with Charlie and urged me out the door. I was hesitant, but I looked at her as she smiled at me with reassurance, and I figured it was only a few hours. What could possibly happen? So I kissed her, kissed Charlie, and I left.”

My heartbeat is pounding madly within the weak walls of my chest, and I almost beg Gavin to stop the story. But I hold my tongue while he continues.

“I was gone for two hours and twenty-three minutes. When I walked back in the house, I found Amanda sleeping on our bed. I couldn’t find Charlie anywhere.”

My stomach cramps as I imagine Gavin’s rising panic while he searched for his son.

“I ran out the door… through the yard, calling his name. One of the neighbors heard me and came out to help me search. We went from yard to yard, until we reached the end of our street, which butted up against a small embankment that rolled down to a tiny creek at the bottom of the hill. We found Charlie there… in the water. He had a bruise on his head. The coroner thinks he must have fallen and hit his head, landing face first in the shallow water. He drowned. He was two years old.”